holy rites
by your.kat
Summary: A future choose-your-own-ending fic, inspired by a song...
1. holy rites

Rachel isn't sure she will ever get used to this: the photoshoots, the press, the recording studios; the billboards, the late nights, the fame of it all.

Sure, she had prepared for it her entire childhood - she had a myspace archive of epic proportions to attest to that. But… But it had never quite _settled_ , this feeling in her chest that things were good, but that they could be even _better_.

Rachel isn't lonely, not necessarily. Her dads have always been her biggest supporters, and there are some friends from college that Rachel would still move mountains for, and vice versa. Her high school years though? Those had faded into relative obscurity in her memory. For the best, she supposes.

Except one shining facet of light that had never, would never, couldn't possibly dim, not in Rachel's heart, and not in a million years.

She's sitting in the town car that the record label has arranged to shuttle her back and forth from one appearance to another. The driver has parked them right outside Rachel's apartment building. She smiles kindly at the driver's face in the rearview mirror as she shakes herself from the all-too-common reveries she's been slipping into lately, then scoots across the seat and out into the humid night air.

Her phone is clutched tightly in her palm, her to-do list ratcheting through her brain so fast that she can hardly stand it. This is only her second album release, but the process is already rote in her brain: the meetings and the song choices, the recordings and the mastering, the social media and the press whirlwind.

Choosing singles.

Sharing her heart.

Hiding the pain.

Rachel starts walking faster, suddenly worried that she might actually be sick in the meticulous entryway if she doesn't hurry up.

When she gets inside her apartment, she presses back against the door and tries to breathe deeply. She brushes the back of her hand against her forehead, and it's then that she realizes she's shaking. Her skin is covered in a cold, clammy sweat, and she retreats on weak legs to the kitchen where she presses a cool cloth to her forehead. After a minute or two, she rotates it to the back of her neck, still leaning over the sink, still willing her stomach not to betray her.

Rachel tells herself that she shouldn't be this nervous. She's done this before, hasn't she? And the world didn't end then - why should it be any different now?

She knows why. But she hides her trepidation at the bottom of a shot glass, downing two biting salves of ice cold vodka in a row. For her nerves, she tells herself.

After a few minutes of blank staring at the vase on her kitchen counter - the one that always has a single gardenia in it - her head starts to swim. It's nice, she thinks. The swimming feeling, more so than the tribute no one ever seems to question.

Rachel swallows hard and heads for her living room.

She doesn't bother stripping out of the latest outfit that's been selected for her. It's not comfortable, but nothing about this holy rite has ever been comfortable.

Instead of going for her laptop, which is sitting on the table a foot away, Rachel curls up and unlocks her phone.

She's never changed her favorites on the home call screen, not once. People come and go, but this lone gesture remains.

Quinn Fabray's name is there, half-way down the screen - just below her fathers' numbers and Shelby's cell, and just above Finn Hudson's, then Brody's, even though her parents' are the only ones that ever get used.

Rachel steels herself, wills herself not to back down, not now -

She presses on the girl's name.

The number has been disconnected. Which makes sense, Rachel thinks. How many years has it been, since she first programmed it into her phone?

She goes for the laptop now instead. Opens her email. Types in the only address she'd ever had for her old friend - cheerioprincess2012 .

There's something about this action - writing an email rather than trying to verbalize everything all at once - that makes the words flow easily. Or at least _easier_. Rachel gladly takes the small victory.

 _Dearest Quinn,_

 _It's been awhile, hasn't it? Three years, actually. A lot can happen in three years, can't it? I guess a lot can happen in three seconds, too. It's the relativity of the thing… But I don't need to tell you that._

 _I don't mean to babble. But I know myself well enough now to recognize that as a part of who I inherently am - incessant, I mean, not necessarily babbling. Just… Always with something to say, always looking for someone to say it to…_

 _My second album drops tomorrow. I've been doing the whole media tour thing. It's… rewarding, of course. But also tiring. For every positive review, there's some critic telling me my voice is too perfect. What even is that, Quinn? Anyway… I'm working on it. I think I can be everything I'm supposed to be while still being everything I actually am. I'll get it right, eventually. Right?_

 _The last time I wrote you was actually… my first album, wasn't it? I don't know why I wrote that as a question. I know that's when it was, how could I ever forget? That was a ridiculously long email. But just long enough, at the same time. I told you about every single song - why I picked each one, what they meant to me. I didn't say which ones were specifically for you, Quinn, but I always figured you knew without me having to say._

 _This album is for you, too, in its way. There's this one song… Well. I imagine you'll listen, won't you? Somehow, some way. I like to think these emails and gestures of mine don't go unnoticed. When a song fills me up as completely as this one in particular does, people can_ _feel that_ _, can't they? Can't_ _you_ _, wherever it is you are?_

 _I miss you. It's hard not hearing from you. I wish we could talk. I wish… so many things, Quinn._

 _I love you, Quinn. I always have. I'm so sorry it took me so long to figure it out._

 _Yours, always,  
Rachel_

Rachel stares for a long moment at the email she's composed. She minimizes it, pushing it to the side as she opens another blank email.

This one she addresses to journeyfanboy69 - the email Puck had so kindly set up for Finn when they started high school.

This email takes less time. Subject line: "hi".

 _Finn,_

 _I miss you. I think of you often, and fondly so._

 _With love,  
Rachel_

She sends this email without hesitation, then looks back at the one she's composed to Quinn...

* * *

For ending no. 1: choose chapter 2, "the city sky's feeling dark tonight"  
For ending no. 2: choose chapter 3, "run to you"

* * *

 _"You are creating through your choices, even now. Choose wisely..."_


	2. the city sky's feeling dark tonight

Rachel highlights the entire body of text, and she deletes it.

This email takes the least time of all. Subject line: "even if it's gonna break me, love".

 _Quinn,_

 _My heart is yours forever, and I am eternally sorry._

 _Love,  
Rachel_

This email, too, she sends right away.

And Rachel closes her laptop without looking at the two emails she's already received in turn: both notifying her that her words are destined never to be delivered, nor read.

Rachel already knows as much.

She heads back into the kitchen, desperate to find the bottom of a bottle, and any bottle will do.

FIN


	3. run to you

Rachel isn't sure that anything she could possibly say to Quinn at this point would be good enough. But she means it, what she's said (and not said) about this album and this one song in particular - it's for Quinn, because it never could have been for anyone else. Not even the boy she lost after he was no longer hers anymore.

She reads the email a fourth time, a fifth time, enough times that even the vodka-induced buzz is wearing off. Unacceptable, she thinks, except that she knows she should be sober for this.

The electronic version of a "return to sender" comes back for the email from Finn. Rachel hadn't expected anything else. He's been gone for a long time, now.

Her eyes start to glaze over. She's tired. She should send the email in the morning, maybe, after she's had a few hours to sleep on it.

But… no. _No._ Who is she trying to kid? She's still Rachel Barbra Berry, at the end of the day, and there ain't nothin' gonna break her stride! She's allowed to do something absurd occasionally, something out there - she could be crazy, crazy like a fox!

…So maybe the alcohol is still making its way out of her system. So what.

Rachel hits send. The subject line flashes once, quickly, before it is gone: "let's give love another life".

Her bed is calling her, and she's suddenly very, very okay with that. She feels bone-weary now, like every ounce of her energy has been used up performing this one little action, holy and all-important as it had been.

When her head hits the pillow, she's asleep within seconds, her breaths slow, and even, and relieved.

When Rachel wakes up, she ignores all things technological, as is her habit.

She does yoga, makes a smoothie, pushes her home elliptical to the breaking point.

Finally, she turns to her phone.

There are five dozen new emails, and she begins sifting through them, one by one.

When she happens upon one from… from… Well, she's glad she's no longer on her elliptical, because she definitely would have lost her footing.

She holds her breath as she opens up the email.

 _Rachel Berry,_

 _You know, my use of this email account long ago fell by the wayside. AOL? Who still uses AOL?_

 _But I managed to remember my password several months ago (don't press me to tell you what it was, because it's terribly embarrassing, and I might just tell you if you ask). By the time I sifted through the backlog… Well. I wasn't sure what to say. I'm still not completely sure, but I will say this: I watched you on Fallon last night (_ _loved_ _the musical impressions bit - especially when you sang the Barney theme as Britney; brava!), and I've heard through the grapevine that you call NYC home nowadays (if your press tour hasn't swept you off to distant lands already, again)… That's recently become the place I call home, too._

 _And I know what song you're talking about. I've pretty much been listening to it on repeat all morning._

 _(Don't worry, I listened to the whole album, but… You should know that you don't have to worry - anyone who listens can_ _definitely_ _feel what it means to you, what they_ _all_ _mean to you. But this one in particular…)_

 _Rachel. Darling, daring, wonderful Rachel - who once sent a girl to an inactive crackhouse, but who also saved me more times than she knows - the thought of you, the knowledge of your existence and of your success, has always played as the background music to my own life. You say you love me, you say that maybe you always have, and I accept that without hesitation. Because, in spite of the years and the distance, I never stopped loving you, either._

 _Maybe that's a funny place to reboot a friendship. But I'm okay with it, if you are._

 _I have a new number. My contact info is attached to this email. If you show up with flowers, I'll expect them to be wrapped up in a ribbon that matches these eyes of mine._

 _(It really did take you a long time to figure it out, didn't it?)_

 _See you soon?_

 _\- Quinn_

Rachel thinks she might be able to fly, if she flaps her arms hard enough in this moment.

She doesn't even change out of her workout clothes before she grabs her keys and hits the street. Quinn's address isn't more than a short subway ride away, and Rachel thinks she knows the _perfect_ florist to stop at on her way…

FIN2


End file.
